Hiding cauliflower

[LeeLee]

The thread has moved on from mince, but what the heck.

You can make a VERY nice cheese sauce by overcooking cauli and onion in milk. Blitz until completely smooth and stir in some grated strong cheese. No need for carbs to thicken it. I use low fat cheese and a tablespoon of dried 'parmesan'.

 

[Northerner]

Thought this deserved its own thread! 🙂 Sounds good, I will have to try this!

 

[LeeLee]

Also good for thickening a curry... while the pot is bubbling away, overcook some cauli and then do one of the following: (1) blitz it on its own and stir into the curry at the end, or (2) when the curry is done, scoop out the bits that need to be lumpy then add the cauli and blitz into the sauce before adding the lumps back in.

 

[AlisonM]

That sounds great LeeLee. I'm definitely going to try it.

 

[Ewelina]

Clever😎 Im just wondering though if overcooked cauliflower doesnt affect the sugar levels (due to high GI) more than 2 spoons of flour you use to make a cheese sauce. Need to test it!

 

[Sazzaroo]

LeeLee i am thinking of hiring you as my personal chef lovi you come up with fab ideas.

THANK YOU! 🙂​

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[everydayupsanddowns]

Clever😎 Im just wondering though if overcooked cauliflower doesnt affect the sugar levels (due to high GI) more than 2 spoons of flour you use to make a cheese sauce. Need to test it!

Where did you read that it was high GI? I'm not sure if anyone would have tested the GI of cauliflower since there is all but no carbohydrate in it (my old Pan book lists it as 1g CHO per 100g), whereas flour, of course would be more like 70g CHO per 100g.

 

[Ewelina]

Cauliflower has 5g of carbs in 100g and its GI is 15. Its not much and very healthy option for us. I was just wondering if overcooking it doesnt affect GI (like carrots for example). They all say dont overcook vegetables

 

[trophywench]

Over cooking (as in sprouts LOL) destroys the vitamins and minerals, so you throw em out with the water when you strain em.

The GI is a bit different; like mashed spud being faster acting than a boiled spud. That's to do with the mashing of it breaking down the remaining cellulose round the starch in spuds - and it may be the same with cauli?

Not the actual carb CONTENT per se; more the AVAILABLE carb content ? Because your body doesn't have to do much to get to the carb, it can get at it (and it to you!) quicker.

Probably if you ate a tablespoon of flour it wouldn't get into your bloodstream very quickly (I'm not about to try it!) BUT the whole basis of boiling the flour (as in thickening a sauce) is to cause the gluten to be released - so you know whenever you do that you have released a tablespoon of immediately available carb, that when you put it in your mouth, your body can absorb pronto.

A roux will be faster acting carb than a beurre manie for example because the first one involves hot fat which breaks down the cellulose and the second, cold fat which only does it slightly as you work it.

I'm sure Heston could explain thisa lot better than me .....

But finally, the sauce thickened with cauli will always be lower carb than with flour because there's less carb in cauli whatever you do to them - unless you eat a field of em!